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From ski jumping to speedskating, winter sports represent physics in action
theconversation.com
From the daring leaps of ski jumpers to the powerful strides of speedskaters, winter sports showcase physics in motion. When athletes compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics, they will demonstrate principles that physics students have already measured, modeled, and felt firsthand. As a physicist and educator, I help my students view these games as a dynamic classroom where abstract scientific lessons come to life. My work focuses on connecting ideas like kinematics, forces, energy, and momentum to tangible, real-world experiences.
To better understand my student-athletes, I once attended a meeting of the Clemson University football team's offensive unit. I left that meeting with more than just appreciation; I had the foundation for a new introductory physics course. Sitting in the back row, I listened to the coach analyze the upcoming game. I understood every individual word. The players, often named Sam or Mike, discussed gaps and boxes. I recognized the terminology, followed the diagrams on the whiteboard, and could repeat the language being used. Yet, I understood nothing about how all those pieces combined into a winning strategy. The information remained disconnected from actionable meaning.
This moment of confusion mirrored the experience many students have with physics. They can memorize equations, define vocabulary, and follow individual problem-solving steps. However, they often struggle to connect these isolated pieces into a coherent understanding of how the physical world actually operates. Physics can seem like a self-contained academic subject, strangely removed from everyday life. To bridge this gap, I created Clemson University's Physics of Sports class. This course does not begin with abstract problems involving frictionless blocks or idealized systems. Instead, it starts with the sports people already know and care about. From that engaging foundation, the class systematically reveals the underlying physics that makes those athletic feats possible.
Traditional introductory physics courses often ask students to calculate the motion of a frictionless block sliding down an inclined plane. In my course, students analyze the physics behind the newest Olympic sports. Ski mountaineering, which will debut at the 2026 Winter Olympics, presents a perfect case study. Athletes must climb steep, snow-covered slopes using only their own power. This challenge presents students with an elegant physics problem centered on friction—the force that resists sliding between two surfaces.
To accelerate uphill, a skier's skis must generate a small amount of forward-directed friction to push off the snow. Simultaneously, those same skis must provide enough friction in the opposite direction to prevent the athlete from sliding backward down the slope. This appears to be a contradiction: how can one surface provide controlled friction in two opposing directions? Skiers resolve this paradox using specialized equipment called climbing skins. These adhesive strips are attached to the bottom of skis. They are engineered with a directional nap, similar to fur or grass, which allows the ski to slide smoothly forward but grips the snow firmly when pushed backward. In class, students examine how the material science behind these skins enables efficient ascents, turning a complex physics challenge into a manageable athletic task.
The role of specialized materials continues in the sport of ski jumping. The skin-tight suits jumpers wear serve a critical physics function, far beyond mere aesthetics. Loose fabric would increase aerodynamic drag, slowing the athlete down. Perhaps more surprisingly, billowing fabric could even generate unintended lift, similar to the wingsuit of a skydiver, unpredictably altering the jumper's flight path. Tight-fitting clothing minimizes these effects, ensuring that competition results depend primarily on athletic skill and technique, thereby creating a fairer field for all competitors.
In ice sports, subtle differences in the application of physics can separate Olympic medalists from the rest of the field. Our class investigates these fine margins. For instance, students explore how speedskaters lean at extreme angles during high-speed turns without falling over. This analysis involves centripetal acceleration and force diagrams. Centripetal acceleration is the inward-directed acceleration that keeps any object moving along a curved path. For the skater, this force must be precisely balanced by the friction between their skate blades and the ice, as well as the lean of their body.
Figure skating provides another compelling example where minute changes in body positioning produce dramatic effects. The key concept here is angular momentum, which quantifies the amount of rotational motion an object possesses. Angular momentum depends on two factors: how fast the object is spinning and how its mass is distributed relative to the axis of rotation. This principle allows figure skaters to control the speed of their spins. A skater who begins a spin with arms outstretched will spin relatively slowly. By pulling those arms in close to their body, the skater redistributes their mass closer to the axis of rotation. Because angular momentum is conserved, this reduction in rotational inertia causes the spin rate to increase dramatically.
In the classroom, students don't just watch elite athletes perform these maneuvers; they model the concepts with their own bodies. A classic demonstration involves a student sitting on a rotating stool while holding weights in their outstretched hands. As they begin to spin slowly and then pull the weights inward, they experience a rapid acceleration of their rotation, directly emulating the physics of a figure skater's spin.
Through the study of sports, students begin to perceive physics not as a disconnected collection of formulas, but as an essential framework for understanding how the world operates. A foundational grasp of physics empowers students to critically evaluate claims they encounter daily, from viral sports clips and marketing gimmicks to misleading headlines. For example, highlight reels sometimes make it appear as if an athlete can steer left or right after launching into a jump. A student who understands Newton's laws of motion knows this is impossible. Once an athlete is airborne, their center of mass follows a predetermined parabolic arc. They cannot change their overall flight path unless they push against something, like using skis to push against snow in a ski jump takeoff. What viewers perceive as mid-air steering is actually a pre-planned rotation of the body, not a change in the trajectory of the jump itself.
Elite athletic performances are not the only arenas where physics is visibly at work. The same fundamental principles govern most everyday experiences, from driving a car around a curve to the stability of a bicycle. Using sports as an accessible and engaging entry point, students learn a scientific language that allows them to interpret, question, and appreciate the physical world surrounding them. Physics does not reside solely in textbooks or on exam papers. It is woven into every athletic stride, every sharp turn on ice, and every aerial rotation. From recreational weekend activities to the pinnacle of Olympic competition, the laws of physics are always in action, providing a consistent and fascinating explanation for motion and performance.